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Daeikzae: Tales of Light And Shadow - Chapter 2 [A Good Sport]

Face me, vermin...ta zai'ikvunso zylfe'ev!

Spoiler for Chapter 2:

Show

"I am the hunter."

They were looking for him. Samael crouched beside the dumpster, pressing his slender form against its rusty, dull green side. Flashlights swept by the hiding spot, but the beams did not illuminate his position. The fault did not lie in the lights themselves; the one they sought seemed to be naturally cloaked in shadow. If they did manage to find him, however, one look would have been enough to convince them that he was…without a doubt…a suspect.

He took a deep breath, expanding his senses. There were thirteen of them out there, and, judging by their steady heartbeats, they were experienced.

Being a new face in town was not much help, in his case; the flashlight owners were local law enforcement. Sporting bold yellow-and-black body armor, and state-of-the-art immobilization technology, the WRF soldiers would be quite the handful for the average person. Samael was no such individual.

They had come here because of what he’d done.

It had started out innocently enough. He’d visited a small, out-of-the-way desert town on his journey. Here, he was an observer to a “test of skill” fight between two gladiators; a nighttime tradition for this place. It was there where it all started; a chain reaction of opponents that earned him a spot in the warrior rankings on the world. His first challenger? A little girl named Allie…

***

She had olive-green eyes, and black hair that fell just past her shoulders. Her shirt was a bright red, its vibrant shade in direct contrast to her darker denim overalls. On her back was a black backpack with silver spider zippers and she had glittering pink sneakers on both feet. She’d been an easy one to defeat.

All she could do was spit venom and her backpack could spin webs. Maybe she could do more, but Samael had been unwilling to let her draw the fight out too long. He’d left her on the brink of death, mostly because she wasn’t worth killing. All she’d done was make fun of his hair; the sin was forgiven with her blood and pain.

The next one was William, a young, red-eyed, glowing white nuisance resembling a ghost. Despite his spirit-type look, he could bleed, and he did, very much…but in the end…the kid fled of his own will. He’d been carrying a fancy-looking jewelled dagger fashioned to look like a dragon’s head. Samael had let the ghost stab him with it, because he was wondering if it had some special power. It didn’t.

William also had this near-intangible, green-eyed presence with him. It felt like it came from the stars, but after Samael had given it some…thrillingly torturous prodding…he figured out that the being was not an Alphegerai. It had left first, and the boy had followed soon after. William had attacked him because he’d been a friend of Allie’s. Try as he might, the hybrid could not understand how the girl could have such a cowardly creature as an ally. The most confusing thing about the encounter…was that the pair seemed to have left very early during the fight. William had attacked Samael first, and had shown no fear at all, but eventually, fear was what drove him away. Why? The hybrid had no explanation.

After the defeat of William, Samael’s influence began to spread among the gladiatorial communities. Though none of them had the courage to mention it, most beings the hybrid encountered were wondering why he wasn’t signing up to be an official warrior, like most gladiators on this planet. In fact, that was the question of Samael’s next opponent, Sandros, who attacked him because he thought the hybrid was a “bad guy”.

Apparently, the kid thought fighting Samael was what made him a good guy…and the hybrid was swift to show him the error of his ways. The scaly material on the boy’s arms and legs did nothing to protect him, and in the end, his body was lying broken on the street; tear-filled eyes locked onto a feathery mush that used to be his pet budgie. That bird’s voice had been the most annoying thing Samael had ever heard in his life. Sandros should be thanking him; no living thing should be allowed to bear such ridiculous squawking.

A couple of days later, Samael was officially challenged by a teen named Silas. He was a puppeteer with a shaggy wooden serpent doll with a shaggy black coat. He’d named the puppet Tina, and she had been slightly more irritating than the last opponents had been. Even though Samael was not an official entrant into the perpetual fighting competition, Silas still wanted to fight him, saying that he wanted to “prove himself”.

Samael overpowered him easily and was about to forcibly remove the teen’s entire intestinal tract through his mouth, but that accursed puppet got in the way and saved his life. He’d let them both escape, mostly because he was bored that the fight took so long. Simply put, the two characters, both of which could puppeteer each other, eventually failed to entertain him; it was just the same trick over and over. In a way, he was actually glad that the puppet ended it.

After that incident, he began to attract the WRF’s attention. To his defense, the hybrid would have argued that he hadn’t actually killed anybody; just a good-for-nothing feathered green noisemaker. Nobody would miss that thing.

Besides, sparing the lives of the defeated just meant that they’d spread their terrifying experiences throughout the planet. Once they did that, similar fools would rise up against him; the cycle would continue until he found his rival. For Samael, there was nothing else that made him smile more. So far, these thoughtless vermin seemed to have forgotten his massacre long ago.

His rival was here. Whoever or whatever it was, he was going to kill it in the slowest and most excruciating way possible. There would be no escape.

He…Samael…was the embodiment of its destiny.

***

They were leaving.

Samael slowly rose from beside the dumpster, watching the soldiers return to their vehicles. Yes, he could have killed them all, but he was not in the mood to make a mess right now. He could get carried away, and accidentally cause more suffering than he’d intended.

All that pain was reserved for his rival.

The hybrid took one step out into the open, scanning the streets for potential nuisances. Nothing drew his gaze. He sighed; red electricity snapping across his body, and then moved to cross the street.

The attack came from the left.

A sudden weight slammed into Samael’s side; shrill shrieks stabbed through the air. Surprised, the hybrid tumbled onto the pavement, covering his face instinctively. Claws rent his sleeves, but he pulled his arm away and swept sideways, smacking his attacker aside. He got back to his feet, and the being retreated a brief distance, eyeing him for a moment.

The attacker resembled a slender-limbed humanoid with a skin-tight black bodysuit. It had black fingerless gloves over each hand, and its feet were wrapped in a tangled mess of bloodstained fabric strips. Every one of its fingers and toes were armed with a long, wicked-looking transparent claw, and a thin rat tail swished out from behind it. There were also two spike-like metal columns on its back, and its face was covered by a dark gas mask, which was decorated with a bold white skull-type picture.

The hybrid had seen that all at a glance, because in the next moment, the creature was flying right at him again. This time, though, he was ready. Whipping out his hand, he caught his attacker in mid-flight; securing a grip around its neck. As expected, the assailant flailed about wildly, slashing at any part of Samael that it could reach. The scratches healed instantly with every strike, and a creepy grin spread across the hybrid’s face.

“You miserable fool.” Samael hissed. “Do you not know who I am?”

Even though he wasn’t holding the creature’s neck too tightly, its reply still came out as a ragged wheeze.

“Rat…kill…” it coughed.

The metal spikes on its back clicked, both fighters were suddenly enveloped by a thick green gas cloud. Samael dropped Rat, and a host of clattering sounds rattled all around him. There was a chorus of pops, and a massive flaming explosion followed, propelling both the rodent man and the hybrid high into the air. Samael curled his body, twisting around and slamming feet first onto the ground. Cracks radiated from the contact point, and Samael looked up, eyes blazing with renewed hatred. Straightening up, he began to approach Rat, who had landed a short distance away. As he moved, he noticed that the rodent man’s hands, feet, and tail had blackened to a crisp. The sight thrilled the hybrid’s senses, and Samael rushed in, seizing the offender by both hands and pulling him to his feet.

Rat released a whimpering moan, trembling, and the hybrid drew him close to his face.

“You know…” Samael snarled, eyes narrowed. “…you are the only one who has been able to surprise me so far.”

Rat struggled feebly, causing the hybrid to squeeze his damaged hands harder. The pressure caused the rodent man to give up, releasing more agonized moans. Samael’s grin broadened and he breathed deeply, as if drinking in the creature’s pain.

“I’ve decided to reward you…” the hybrid continued. “…in a very, very special way.”

Red lightning crackled across Samael’s body, and he held Rat at an arm’s length. His eyes darkened to expressionless black pools; a mass of red and black tendrils radiated out from their edges. A mysterious wind whipped out of nowhere, carrying a cacophonic mess of agonized shrieks with it. The gale surged around Samael, tearing at his clothes and whipping his hair into an even messier mass of spikes. A red light blinked on his forehead; a V shape, glowing a malevolent red in the shadow. His shadow visor darkened completely, concealing the upper part of his face.

Rat tried to struggle again, but all he managed was a weak tail twitch. Chuckling, Samael pulled the helpless creature close, and put his lips to its ear.

“Okkevunlio.” he whispered, and shoved Rat back.

The rodent man staggered and collapsed; his injured feet unable to support his weight. Samael watched intently, giggling as Rat writhed and twisted, garbled shrieks sputtering through his mask. Tears opened up across his shoulders and head; the blood from the wounds starting as small spurts before morphing into full blown geysers.

The hybrid continued to watch the show, but then his smile abruptly disappeared.

“Right…right…my rival.” he muttered. “Reservations.”

Sighing, he snapped his fingers, and a series of muffled clicks and crunches came from within Rat’s body. Moments later, the creature turned inside out: morphing into a grotesque, formless mass of bleeding flesh, shiny guts, and pale bone. Features returned to normal, Samael looked at the pile for a moment, and then approached it, twisting the items around. When he was done, Rat’s skeleton was leaning over the gut pile, positioned as if he was struggling to put them back into his body; strands of tendon and muscle hanging off his bones in melting webs. Samael put a hand to his chin, smiling in grim satisfaction at his work.

“What a good sport.” he purred, ending the sentence with a dark chuckle.

And with that, he turned away, humming a wordless tune to the nighttime air.